


To Be Called Katherine

by Sangerin



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Gen, Role Models, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-18 05:52:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/876364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangerin/pseuds/Sangerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s some pretty cool Catherines (and Katherines and Kathryns) out there. Who knows? Maybe there’s something special about us Kates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be Called Katherine

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another semi political puff-piece. The Olympic influence in this one is obvious. Planned the morning of Freeman’s race, finished long after.

You know, I’ve pretty much always hated my name. There’s too many Katherines, Kathryns, and Catherines. Add the Kathleens and the Caitlyns, and there’s half the human female population of the quadrant, not to mention a few non-human ones whose parents, for some unknown reason, actually liked the name. You’d think, in this day and age, with names from so many cultures to choose from, that people would come up with more interesting names for their children. You’d think.

The other day, I did some research on the computer - translation: I was bored out of my skull. That, and I had a lab report due the next day. But I decided to do some research into my name. There’s so many of us - there’s got to be some reason. So I did a search, and boy, did I come up with piles it. Catherines, Kathryns, and Katherines. Piles and piles of them, way back to the fourth century. Ancient stuff - some of it, I couldn’t see why it was still on the computer. Who’d really be interested in it - apart from bored students trying to procrastinate.

But you wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I found. There’s some pretty cool Catherines (and Katherines and Kathryns) out there. Who knows? Maybe there’s something special about us Kates.

Take Catherine di Sienna. In the old Roman Catholic Christian Church, Catherine di Sienna was a ‘Saint.’ People prayed to her and to statues of her. They believed she had performed miracles. But more important than that was what she really did. Saint of the Roman Catholic Church, a woman who refused to marry the man her parents had chosen for her, who spent long hours in solitary contemplation, and acted totally against the expectations society had of women in those long ago, archaic times. She bucked the system. You’ve got to love someone who bucks the system.

Like Ekaterina I of Russia, a young German princess married into the Russian Imperial family, losing her religion and her own name in the process. She was a foreigner as well as a woman – she should have been seen and not heard. She should have sat by her husband’s side and had babies to continue the Imperial line. Instead, she seized the country from the rule of her husband, and became known as one of that country’s greatest imperial leaders. Sure, she was an autocrat. She had people imprisoned, she had people executed. No one ever said she was a nice person. But she did something that no one ever expected a woman to do. She ran a country.

Catherine Helen Spence worked tirelessly to create a country. There weren't too many women in politics in those days - in fact, women weren't even allowed to vote in most parts of the world, can you believe that? What sort of idiots did they have running their countries? Catherine Spence fought in the dark ages of the late 1800s for women to be given a voice in politics. She was the first woman in Australia - which wasn't even a country yet, just a lot of arguing colonies - to run for election. She didn't win, but she didn't come last, either. There were arguments over the legality of her candidacy, and not a single party or media organisation would support her or promote her. Even so she received several thousand votes.

She was a dreamer, too. She wrote a book called "A week in the future," in which she imagined what life would be like for women in a hundred years time. She was a novelist, a journalist, a political lobbyist, a politician, and an inspiration. But the sad thing was that her story was almost lost to history. People pretty much ignored her until, at the beginning of the 21st century, Australia, the country she had worked to create, was celebrating a centenary, and decided to replace the picture of the Queen on their ancient monetary system with a picture of this particular Kate. A lot of people didn't notice or didn't care, but some did, and they made sure she wasn't forgotten.

Around the time of that celebration was another Kate. Catherine Freeman was a 20th Century athlete who found herself in the awkward position of a national symbol when she carried the flag of her own people after a race in which she represented a country of settlers who didn’t truly appreciate a tragic history. With that small gesture of waving a flag, she opened peoples’ eyes to that unacknowledged history. Six years later, weighed down by the expectations of the entire nation, the frustrating antipathy of the government, and an enthusiastic and growing people’s movement, a single running race held the entire country’s focus. Some people were convinced she would win - some were scared for the reaction against her if she did not. But most of the country was watching her run. They watched her win, and they celebrated. And Catherine Freeman became a national hero, whether she wanted to be or not.

Kathryn Janeway became the hero of an entire quadrant. Back in the 24th Century she had brought her crew home from 70,000 light years, the other side of the known galaxy. She had commanded two disparate crews, and somehow, had made them one. She commanded a single ship, a single crew for more than seven years. While her officers kept a ship together without dockyards and Starfleet standard supplies, she was the one who had to keep the crew together, and focussed. And they always were focussed - on the single goal of getting home to Earth, sometime in the future.

None of the historical records say anything about whether she had anyone keeping her together. She must have - no one can stay isolated at the top of a hierarchy like that without totally losing it. But who could it have been - she was the Captain, it would have been against protocol for her to be romantically involved with another member of the crew. Then again, who said anything about romance - if the senior officers were good, close friends - and some of the media reports on reunions after they get home show they were - that might have been enough.

The database doesn’t say anything about what Kathryn Janeway did after she got her crew home. It’s as though she just melted into the crowd, never to be seen again. She’d finished the task she had given herself, more than seven years earlier, and when that was done, she vanished. I hope she was able to live in peace.

So, I guess us Kates don’t do too badly after all - if you believe this little group, we’re world-beaters, world-creators. These women are inspirations…

_Katherine put aside the padd. The journal entry she had written as a young, bored, procrastinating student still managed to inspire her, even so many years later. She always re-read it when she needed to call on the strength demonstrated by the Kates. Like today…with this particular job ahead of her. Katherine Khorkin, newly elected head of the first Milky Way colony in Andromeda, breathed deeply, then walked through the door to face her people._


End file.
